Friday 6 December 2013

1988: GILBERT'S FRIDGE WINTER SPECIAL **UPDATED** (Marvel UK)

This is something that I doubt features too prominently on Dan Abnett's sprawling CV: GILBERT'S FRIDGE.

This one-shot Winter Special, spun-off from the Tyne Tees TV show, was published by MARVEL UK in late 1988.



Gilbert the snotty-nosed alien first came to my attention as part of the presenting team of the Saturday (and, latterly, Sunday morning) programme GET FRESH (a live roadshow affair, staged by the ten smaller ITV companies on a rotating basis, that visited a different location - via the fictional Millennium Dustbin space craft - every Saturday morning*) before spinning off into his own show, Gilbert's Fridge, which I believe aired on a weekday afternoon as part of the CITV Children's block.

Here's a bit of Gilbert action:



My other abiding memory of Get Fresh was a live performance by the group PiL which saw John Lydon (who I once briefly met in a radio studio, he seemed perfectly amiable) give the two-fingered salute to camera on an edition live from Bristol Zoo**.  Thankfully, it was recorded for prosperity here:


**UPDATE: It seems like the PiL posse had previous form when it came to behaving unpredictably, and being unable to hide their disdain, on (as) live TV.  Here's their appearance on the US version of Top Of The Pops, AMERICAN BANDSTAND, from 1980.  It's completely by chance I read about this at the weekend…**


* The Sunday morning programme, which was pre-recorded and consisted on one full half-hour and series of inter-programme continuity links, took part in the bowls of the Dustbin and was actually shot at Border TV's studios in Carlisle.

** Zoos must have been a favoured landing site for the show, I recall another episode from Colchester Zoo, the nearest the show ever came to where I lived.

3 comments:

  1. another wonderful oddity unearthed..thanks slow robot..just a quick heads up on the marvel fact files..not sure if you collect these as they are very hard to find in the shops..anyway, issue 37 has a great article on the marvel uk gang ( deaths head et al )

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    1. Hello Ed.

      I do indeed get the FACT FILES and it was a very nice surprise to see the GENESIS 92 books so prominently featured inside the current issue. They did a nice job and it's good to see M-UK being reintegrated into the MCU after being ignored for so long. The Binder was a bit of a surprise too, I hadn't realised I'd already filled two! Being in London, copies are relatively easy to come-by but, funnily enough, I spotted that issue in a branch of WH Smith! Maybe they stock "binder" issues on the basis that it's a good jumping-on point for casual readers.

      I think a previous issue also covered the NEW UNIVERSE, which was cool too.

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  2. you have better shops than we do in Ireland...even my forbidden planet rarely has it..I had to buy my copy from a street seller...



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